Steve Griggs - Reviews

Jones for Elvin - Volume 2

Seattle Magazine - April 2000 issue

It's not every day that an artist gets to study with a great master. How many painters apprenticed with Picasso? How many architects worked under Frank Lloyd Wright?

Only a handful get to live out that kind of dream.

In the case of Seattle saxophonist Steve Griggs, he made his own dream come true. For three days in the fall of 1998, Griggs hired one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century - jazz great Elvin Jones.

Known for his polyrhythmic cascades on the drums - most famously with the John Coltrane Quartet of the 1960s - Jones has influenced not only every jazz artist of the last 40 years, but has had profound impact on they rhythmic complexity of contemporary classical, rock and pop music as well. Every serious drummer and percussionist alive today owes much to Elvin Jones.

Griggs made the most of his three-day immersion in Jonesian art. He recorded two CDs worth of music, the second of which will be released April 12. "Jones for Elvin-Volume 2" features a quintet with some of Seattle's finest musicians: Jay Thomas on trumpet, Milo Petersen on guitar, Phil Sparks on bass, Griggs on saxophone and Jones on drums.

"Jones for Elvin-Volume 1" was one of the best recordings of 1999, receiving radio play all over the country and garnering strong reviews. "Volume 2" has more of the same-tasty original tunes by Griggs in a straight-ahead vein reminiscent of Coltrane, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock.

"Working with Elvin gave me a brief glimpse of the support, freedom and passion that John Coltrane must have experienced every night," Griggs says in the CD notes. "I was in the Elvin zone."

Check out Griggs during a flurry of gigs surrounding the CDs release. Alas, he will be without Elvin, but his musical spirit and inspiration surely will be in the air.

-Gordon Todd

Gordon Todd writes about jazz and hosts "Drive Time Jazz" Thursdays 6-9 a.m. on KBCS 91.3 FM.